Feel like crap today — think I'm being hit by the worst of the vaccine side-effects, so I'm going to get an early(ish) night in just a moment. Then hopefully I'll feel reasonably fresh to do some video recording tomorrow!

After getting a bunch of Atelier Firis done as I hoped, I closed off my evening with a nice drive in Euro Truck Simulator 2. That game really is delightfully comfy, and the experience can vary nicely according to how you set it up, too — you can create a very different atmosphere for yourself simply by whether or not you have the in-game radio (which actually streams from Internet radio stations, some of which cater specifically to Euro Truck Simulator 2) turned on or not.

Tonight, I had it turned off, so the only sound was the muffled noise of my engine from within the apparently nicely soundproofed cabin on the Mercedes whatever my truck is, the rumble of the road beneath my wheels, and the occasional swoosh of a car passing — punctuated, of course, by occasional law-abiding use of indicators. My truck has nice-sounding indicators, so I make a point of using them appropriately.

Tonight's drive took me from Groningen in the northern Netherlands to Paris, France. It was a reasonable length trip that didn't provide a ton of particularly spectacular scenery, but there was an enjoyable bridge crossing which the Internet reliably informs me is known as the Afsluitdijk. I like bridges, and this was a good one — although I guess more accurately it is a dam and/or a causeway. Either way, it was probably the main highlight of the trip.

My head is aching and my eyes are having trouble staying open, so I'm off to bed. Lots to do tomorrow, so I hope I'm feeling better by then!

It's finally the end of a long and stressful week, and thankfully I think all the stress is over and done with. The sites are working as they should, the issues are resolved and thus, all being well, next week should be back to normal.

Have been feeling some vaccine side effects today; been very tired and a bit ache, so had a good nap earlier. Then spent most of the evening playing Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. I didn't feel like I had the mental energy for Atelier, but will be spending some serious time on it over the weekend.

Got some more videos to record over the weekend too. Was pleased with how well the Quartet video was received, so there will definitely be more applications on Atari ST A to Z going forward, so long as it's practical yo do so. Plenty of interesting music programs if nothing else; I'm not sure I can make a video about something like Zoomracks 2 interesting!

Anyway, time for a long nap and a nice lie-in, then hopefully a nice weekend. Hope you all have a good weekend too!

Been a stressful couple of days. Retrounite suffered a bot/virus/spam attack that it's been taking a while to recover from, and Rice Digital had some issues earlier too that necessitated me working into the evening to fix some of the damage that was caused. Thankfully, neither situation was malicious, I don't think — the latter definitely wasn't, not sure about the former — but it's still been a pain in the arse to deal with.

Thankfully, it's all resolved now, so hopefully I can enjoy a reasonably straightforward and quiet end to the week. Andie's been ill and I've been tired out from my second COVID shot so I'll be glad when this week is over — I just want to sit back and relax for a bit. I haven't even had much time to play a lot of Atelier Firis this week, which is frustrating — I'm enjoying it a lot but I just feel like my evenings keep getting taken over by… something, yet when I try and figure out where all the "free" time has gone I come up empty.

Ah well. At least the heat wave has broken and we've had some nice cool rain over the course of the last few days. That's a relief, at least; dealing with stressful work stuff through that would have been an absolute nightmare. It's still pretty warm and humid here, but not nearly as uncomfortable as it has been, so hopefully we've seen the back of "summer" for now.

This week I'm going to get some videos recorded and knuckle down to some serious Atelier. I think I've had a chance to play enough to be able to write something over the weekend, but we'll have to see; this one might take a little longer than "usual" for various reasons.

Anyway, enough worrying. Time to relax after a particularly stressful day in a stressful week!

Think I forgot to write again yesterday — I believe I forgot to take my meds in the morning and didn't notice until later so ended up feeling a tad fuzzy-headed, depressed and anxious of an evening, so wasn't exactly thinking straight. Apologies! Here I am now, though.

Had my second shot of the vaccine (Pfizer crew represent) today. So far I appear to have been mostly clear of ill effects aside from the expected achey/heavy arm, though I did have a nice nap after work which suggests I might have been a bit tired. I understand that some of the effects might not show up until a day or two later, though, so… looking forward to that, I guess?

Nothing much else to report right now. Going to settle down for a weekly Final Fantasy XIV session in a bit; I'm making nice progress through Stormblood, so it hopefully won't be all that long until I'm actually into stuff that is brand new to me! Exciting. Very interested to check out the Omega raid cycle and, of course, Shadowbringers.

I am, however, also battling a strong urge to play Euro Truck Simulator 2 and Bus Simulator 18, because I've developed a real strong attachment to these games, and they're nicely chilled out affairs that are quite often just what the doctor ordered.

Maybe I'll drive a route or two before bed. But first, Doma needs me!

I opened Launchbox earlier. "Installing Launchbox," it said, before taking ten minutes to update itself, refresh its database and actually start.

I opened Spotify earlier. "Installing Spotify," it said, before disappearing from the screen for several minutes and then starting as if nothing had happened.

I started up my PS4 to download Samurai Warriors 5 earlier. "Installing system update," it said, deciding to spend ten minutes installing that before actually downloading the thing I'd asked it to download.

I turned my phone on earlier. "Software update ready to install," it said. "Do it later," I said. Then it did it anyway while I was in the middle of transferring files from it.

This is really bloody tiresome. And yes, I know you can turn automatic updates off. But in quite a few cases, doing so prevents you from actually using a piece of software until you turn them back on again — and in some cases, turning automatic updates off just means that it repeatedly bugs you to download an "optional" available update until you do so.

The Internet is many things, but one of the things I detest about it the most is this never-ending torrent of updates we have to endure in our daily lives. Nothing ever seems to be in prime condition any more; in the case of applications like Spotify and Launchbox, it feels like there are updates every other day sometimes. And when I just want to listen to some music or browse some completely legitimate ROM collections that I have ripped myself from my own games, yessirree, I can't be arsed with having to go through a whole install process every single bloody time.

First world problems, I know. But come on. It's annoying.

Think I forgot to write — apologies. In exchange, I present to you a guide to some of my favourite bad puns, jokes and/or references in my video titles. I'm never sure if anyone actually "gets" some of the references I make, but they make me happy, and to be honest that's all that really matters. With that in mind, here's a selected assortment:

• FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO LANTERNS (Bruce Lee, Atari 8-bit) – referencing The Beastie Boys' Fight For Your Right To Party, because in Bruce Lee you are fighting to get lanterns. And probably to party, but I've never got that far.

• LAYING CABLES (Juice!, Atari 8-bit) – If you're laying a cable, you're having a poo. But it's also what you're doing in Juice!

• JOEY DOESN'T SHARE FRUIT (Kangaroo, Atari 8-bit) – In Friends, Joey doesn't share food. A baby kangaroo is called a joey. In Kangaroo, you don't share fruit.

• NEAR A TOMATO (The Upper Reaches of Apshai, Atari 8-bit) – This was a common "hilarious" mispronunciation of Nier: Automata back when it came out, but in The Upper Reaches of Apshai there is rarely a time when you aren't near a tomato — one that wants to kill you.

• MATTER OF FACT IT'S ALL DARK (Dark Side, Atari ST) – A reference to Pink Floyd's album The Dark Side of the Moon, which concludes with a very quiet outro that includes the revelation that the moon doesn't really have a dark side; it is, in fact, all dark, and the part that appears "light" is just due to the sun. But you knew that.

• PIRAMITSUDO MAJITSUKU (Gem'X, Atari ST) – What the katakana on the emphatically not Japanese Gem'X's packaging actually says, rather than what they intented (which was presumably "piramiddo majikku", or "pyramid magic")

• POLITICS IN GAMES (Mercenary III, Atari ST) – I was hoping this title would make more people angry than it did. You know how people get pissy about video games having "politics" in them? Well, Mercenary III is literally a game about politics.

• EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR (Garfield: Winter's Tail, Atari ST) – Shakespeare's best ever stage direction. The source? The Winter's Tale, of course.

• CONFIDENCE AND HUNGER (Concentration, Atari 2600) – "Concentration comes out of a combination of confidence and hunger." – a quote from the golfer Arnold Palmer, who apparently knows about such things.

• NO FLAG, NO COUNTRY, THAT'S THE RULES (Flag Capture, Atari 2600) – I'll just link this to you and you'll work it out.

• SMALLER SALTY MEAT (Micro-Gammon SB, Atari 5200) – Gammon is a type of salty meat, so therefore it stands to reason that micro-gammon is smaller salty meat.

• CATCH THAT CHURCH (Steeplechase, Atari 2600) – Many churches have steeples, so if you're chasing a church you are clearly engaging in a…

• DAS BOOT WAS MADE FOR SHOOTING (Submarine Commander, Atari 2600) – And that's just what it'll do. One of these days das boot is gonna shoot all over yo– wait, that sounds a bit wrong.

I know I'm not big and I'm not clever, but like I say, they make me happy. Plenty more where that came from.

It's trying to rain right now. I encourage it to do so, because the nice breeze that this is causing to drift in through the window is thoroughly pleasant — a lot more so than it has been for the last week.

It's been tough to bear with, because here in the UK our houses tend to be built to keep heat in — as such, many houses (particularly older ones like ours) trap a lot of their heat upstairs and keep it there, which, as you can probably imagine, is great in the winter but absolutely excruciating in the summertime.

The poor old portable air conditioner has been working overtime for the last few days and costing us a lot of money in electricity — it's worth it, though, because the alternative is feeling like we're suffocating. Excess heat actually makes me feel genuinely anxious — I'm not entirely sure why, but I have a vague memory of, in my childhood, believing that if you stay under your own bedcovers for too long (as in, put your head under) you'll suffocate. I don't actually know if that's true or not — I suspect not — but I was always scared any time I was under the covers for some reason and felt warm; I think I literally worried that I was going to die.

I mean, I know I'm probably not going to die in the summer heat here, but it's still unpleasant. The worst thing is how it makes you not want to do anything; hopefully the rain that is still trying to happen as I type this will cool things off a bit and make the weekend a bit more bearable. We shall see!

For now, time to head upstairs, put the AC on full blast and enjoy a nice bit of coolth!

I like Olympics games. Always have done. I wrote about the first one I ever played over on Retrounite this week — go check it out here.

I'm not sure why I've always liked this type of game, because I've never been a particularly sporty person, nor have I ever really taken much of an interest in sports on the television.

That said, I do remember developing an interest in the Olympics as a child — I have reasonably vivid memories of visiting my grandparents' house and watching the Olympics coverage on their old CRT TV that was in the corner of their dining room. I believe that would have been the 1992 Barcelona Olympics because I remember the Queen song; at that point I would have been about 11 years old and still playing games on both the Atari 8-bit and Atari ST — including the original Summer Games.

I think one of the things that appeals to me about Olympics games is that — certainly back in the day, anyway — they were graphical showcases. Epyx's games in particular were always beautifully presented, with excellent animation that really showed what the host platforms were capable of.

These days, that's perhaps less true — the most recent Olympics game from Sega opts for a more stylised, cartoony look than going for realism — but it's still an opportunity for developers to show off things happening in a variety of different environments, and characters doing all manner of different things.

Because that's the other appealing thing — the variety of the things you get up to. In titles like Summer Games, some of those events only last for a couple of seconds, but the feeling of satisfaction when you nail them is immense. Okay, these days the load times between events might put more than a few people off spending too much time practicing, but back in the day, jumping from pole vault to diving to running to gymnastics to swimming was the sort of varied experience you just didn't get in a lot of other games.

While the Olympics are on, over at Retrounite I'm going to cover a few more past generation Olympics and Olympic-inspired games — already planning to look at Beijing 2008 and London 2012 on Xbox 360, but if you have any others you think are especially worth exploring, be sure to let me know! The more the merrier!

Had a slightly late appraisal/probation meeting for my work at Rice today, and I'm pleased to say that I don't suck and have indeed been doing well, and thus the site (and its sister Retrounite) will continue to remain in my hands for the foreseeable future. Hooray!

I'm having a wonderful time. I'm getting paid to do something I love — write — about something I love. I've got a great team of people to work with, and the stuff that goes on "behind the scenes" provides plenty of interesting opportunities.

So that's all lovely! I'm very happy to finally be in a position where I can say this, because heaven knows it's been a long time coming — and not for lack of trying. It's all very well to say "follow your dreams", but sometimes it takes a very long while for those dreams to come true — if they do come true at all.

For my part, I'm happy. I'm where I want to be doing what I want to do, and I have things I can continue to learn and improve for the future. And best of all, I still have the free time to do the things I want to do when I'm not "working", too — in fact in many cases I can do things I want to do and actually call it "work", which is always a pleasurable situation in which to find oneself.

I don't wish to sound like I'm bragging too much, so I'll cut that short there. The knowledge that I've passed that probationary period is a weight off my mind though — I was pretty confident I'd been doing everything I could and that people were pleased with my work, but I always get extremely anxious around appraisal time at any job, because it sometimes ends up feeling like the one time you really have to justify your own existence.

Well, that's all taken care of, now — so onwards and upwards, I say! Upwards to bed first, though; the heat still hasn't broken here so I think it's time to go lie down in an air-conditioned room.

It's still oppressively hot here, but I managed to drag myself out of the house to do a food shop earlier, so at least we won't starve. Anything more strenuous than that feels very much beyond me right now, though, so I've been spectacularly failing to re-establish the gym routine I've been hoping to re-establish.

Still, at least it's not just me; everyone seems to be suffering a bit right now from the heat, so I don't feel too bad being absolutely exhausted. I do feel a bit bad for the cats, though; they look absolutely fed up with this weather right now, and both of them have actually taken to coming and sitting with us in the bedroom when we have the air conditioner on. Historically I've only known cats who really enjoyed baking themselves in sunbeams and on heating vents; our cats are the only ones I've ever known to specifically seek out air conditioning.

Nothing much else to report for today. Drove from Southampton to France and then on to Poland in Euro Truck Simulator 2 this evening, then got jammed in a gate at my final destination. It's their fault for "respecting their heritage" or whatever with an old crusty gate rather than one that is any way practical for a truck to get through. I did at least manage to dislodge myself eventually, but if they thought I was going to reverse park after dealing with that they could very much think again.

Off to bed and an air-conditioned room, I think. Hopefully tomorrow will be cooler. But we all know it won't be. Stay safe, all of you, and drink plenty of water or whatever!